Tracing family
Tracing can mean different things: finding information, identifying a relative, checking whether you have found the right person, or making contact.
You can choose how far you want to go. Information, tracing and contact are separate stages.
A practical starting point
- Start with your own records.Names, dates, addresses, occupations and family details can provide the foundation for a search.
- Build a family tree.Birth, marriage and death registrations and other public family history sources can help connect people across generations.
- Check the identity.Do not rely on one matching name or date. Compare several pieces of information before treating somebody as the relative you are looking for.
- Decide whether you want help.You can research yourself, use an intermediary where the statutory service applies, or use specialist tracing help.
Can I trace relatives myself?
Yes. An adult adoptee does not generally have to use an intermediary simply to research their own family history.
You can use information from your records together with public civil registration and family history sources. An intermediary is an option rather than a requirement.
Ask about tracingTracing siblings
Sibling searches can be more complicated because a brother or sister may have a different surname, may have been adopted themselves, or may appear in records through a different parent.
Useful clues can include parents' names, addresses, later marriages, birth indexes and information in the adoption file.
If the sibling was also adopted, the information and intermediary routes may be different. Your own public family history research remains a separate activity.
The Adoption Contact Register
The Adoption Contact Register can help where both people have chosen to register. It is a matching service, not a general tracing database.
It should therefore be treated as one possible route, not as a complete search of whether a relative is alive or wishes to be found.
GOV.UK: Adoption Contact Register →What does an intermediary do?
An intermediary can help trace a relative, verify identity and make an initial approach. For the statutory intermediary route described by GOV.UK, eligibility is linked to adoptions made before 30 December 2005.
If the person does not agree to contact through that process, the intermediary will not disclose their current name or whereabouts through the service.
Using an intermediary is different from researching public records yourself.
GOV.UK: intermediary agencies →DNA and genetic genealogy
DNA can sometimes identify unknown parents or relatives when documentary records do not. The useful evidence usually comes from the pattern of genetic matches and family trees rather than an ethnicity estimate.
DNA results can also reveal unexpected family relationships. Company databases, privacy policies and matching tools change, so check current information before choosing a service or uploading genetic data.
Ask about DNATracing after an intercountry adoption
Intercountry searches can involve records in more than one country, different languages, changing names, incomplete documentation and very different record systems.
Start by gathering every document you already have in the UK and identifying the exact country, place and date of the adoption. Keep adoption recognition and citizenship questions separate from the search for family.
InterCountry Adoptee Voices has extensive adoptee led resources on search and reunion, including guides, lived experience papers and links to country specific adoptee groups.
ICAV: Search and Reunion resourcesWhen records contain uncertainty
Names, dates, spellings and accounts in historic records can be wrong or incomplete. Treat each record according to what it actually proves.
A file naming somebody as a possible father, for example, shows that he was named in the file. It does not by itself prove biological paternity.
Tracing is not the same as contact
Finding somebody and deciding whether or how to contact them are separate choices. You can research without making contact, use an intermediary for an initial approach, or decide on your own route.
The purpose of this site is to explain the available routes and genuine legal limits, not to tell an adoptee what relationship they should or should not pursue.